Archive for January, 2010

iRacing kickstarted their 2010 “World Tour” this past weekend with the first event taking place at Daytona road course.

The iRacing World Tour is a series of virtual events that are closely based on real world racing events over the coming year. This first event corresponds with the Rolex 24 endurance race (a full 24 hour racing event).

The iRacing version saw the Daytona Prototype vehicle in use for 90 laps of Daytona, in an event that took over two hours to complete. The race was a huge success as 950 racers took part, and interest in the event was sky high. A total of 24(!) races were split off and hosted at the same time, which took place just a few hours before the real event started in Daytona.

I had a great race – and didn’t really suffer with loss of concentration over the 90 laps as I feared. I ended up racing in the third split (I was ranked 86th of the 950 entrants). I was hoping to finish the race incident free but I suspected it wouldn’t really come to fruition. I took a 4x hit early on (lap 7) which was OK really as it meant I didn’t have to really worry about maintaining a clean sheet for the rest of the race. Later on I made my one and only major mistake in the race and took an extra 1x off track excursion.

I made a short highlights reel of the race. Not the most exhilarating race recap I’ve seen but it serves as a nice memento of this landmark racing event.

iRacing did a fantastic job at hosting this event which went off without a hitch. There are many events on the calendar to look forward to and it’s truly great to have such a strong community backing to these events – it really makes them special. The next event in two weeks sees a re-enactment of the Daytona 500 to coincide with the start of the Sprint Cup. I’m 90% likely to race in it (although it starts at midnight for me).

After 12 months of racing across four racing seasons its time for the inaugural iRacing World Cup!

The event works by having the entire iRacing membership split into one of 35 racing clubs at the start of the year, grouped by geographic location. Due to its relatively small size my club consists of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The clubs compete each season for the chance to qualify into the next stage of the World Cup by winning one of the four racing season each year.

Club Celtic managed to top their region in two of the four seasons in the last year and qualify with the remaining two berths going to France and England.

In order to qualify for the next stage of the World Cup (the finals, where we have a chance at competing against all the regional winners) we first have to face-off against French and English drivers this coming Saturday and Sunday for the right to be classified as the regional winners.

This week all eligible drivers will be practicing and racing at Road America to hone their skills and earn the right to represent their club in the next stage of the competition. All drivers will be represented, as all clubs will be required to submit two drivers from each racing division (1 through 5), so even the slowest club drivers will play a pivotal role in the destiny of their club.

Club Celtic have some good drivers for the fastest divison but are lacking somewhat in the slower divisions so hopefully we’ll be able to rally the troops and build a strong 10 driver squad that will face the French and English this coming weekend!

I’ve had a very busy season, racing in no less than 4 racing series each week – a new record for me.

Dallara Indycar
This was the first Indycar series in iRacing and so I was eager to get stuck into the new car, especially as fast open wheelers appeal to me.

I found the racing here to be really interesting and unique to the other forms of racing in iRacing. The Indycar races require a stop for fuel so it really made the races memorable, and the blistering pace of the car meant the racing was quite exhaustive at times.

On the whole I was very pleased with my season. I only raced in eight of the 12 weeks but I still was able to finish with 940 points which was way ahead of my usual 100pts/race aim. I finished 15th in division 2.

I also took a victory at Indianapolis which was a bonus.

Late Model

Oval Road Odyssy (a hosted league featuring the Late Model on road courses)
I was really into racing the late model on road courses since I first tried the combo in a 24 Heures du Fun race back in the Summer (which I blogged about here).

I joined this weekly hosted league and had a really good time, taking this great car to some of the best road circuits in iRacing. I didn’t win any races but had a number of memorable races and was pleased with my performance throughout the season (apart from the final race, where I completely took out someone – TWICE – in my worst race ever). I’m thinking of making a very small highlights reel of my activity in this league – should this happen I’ll update this post.

iRacing Late Model Tour
I completed my second season of the iRacing Late Model (I completed my first in 2008 season 4, twelve months ago).

I was interested by the new series schedule, where the car was taken to some larger venues like Phoenix and New Hampshire, and also unusual places like Bristol and Lime Rock Park (road course).

I was looking forward to comparing my result with my performance twelve months ago and I was very happy with the results :

Season

Weeks

Starts

Wins

T5

Inc/R

Points

2008-S4

8

10

0

4

0.6

495

2009-S4

8

17

1

8

0.65

881

I was even able to take my first Late Model win (and second oval win ever) at Bristol! I finished 15th in division 2 with 881 points.

iRacing Road Pro Series
I’ve made a separate post dedicated to this series available here.

Finally my road iRating generally suffered this season, falling from a high point of around 3700 in season 2 to 3400 in season 3 and now finally down to around 3200 in season 4. I put this down to my participation in the Pro series, where I would typically lose iR every single race for finishing in the latter half of the grid. In 2010 I am expecting to see my iRating slowly grow to 3500+ once more, without the downward inclination of the Pro season.

My oval iRating showed marginal change, going from 2300 to around 2450. Not really enough to amount to any increase in skill really.

My safety rating was in good shape all season. I was really striving to finish all my races incident free, and whilst I wasn’t able to achieve my goal of ten races in a row without incident, I lowered my ‘average inc per race’ stat and kept a solid Pro 4.99 (road) and A 4.99 (oval) rating all season.